Sakura
by Cecile Li
Summary: 7 years after everything ended, Sakura still has mixed feelings on Mokuren.


Disclaimer: I do not own Please Save My Earth. If I did, there would be more than 6 dinky episodes in the anime.

Author Note: This turned out amazingly weird. This started when I wanted to sing today, and the first sentence popped into my head. But then it ran off without me. Just to clarify, since it's mixed up, Sakura loves Mokuren/Alice as a friend/sister, whatever. Not romantically, okay? D

Just don't blame me if you think this fic has absolutely nil point. AHHH! I don't like this! I just _know_, that in a year, I will read this again and be so ashamed that I wrote this piece of crap.

SAKURA

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Plants don't grow when I sing.

They don't whisper amongst themselves when I walk towards them. They don't curl against me when I lovingly care for them. They don't love me. They love only Alice.

Everyone always only loves Alice. They love her quiet elegance, her timid beauty, her perfection. It was the same on the moon, it's still the same now. I used to think Enju was the only one who didn't love Mokuren to the point of worshipping her. That's why I loved Enju so much. She didn't fall so easily to the charms and magic tricks of the Kichess. We were the only women on the moon base; we were the only sane ones. Even calm, dependable Hiiragi was half in love with Mokuren. Of course I knew Shukaido, Gyokuran and Shion were in love with her. She was like Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman alive, except she wasn't vicious, a betrayer, or even half as conceited. Mokuren was beautiful and she was kind. I wanted to make her angry sometimes, but I wasn't able to, even though I talked loudly behind her back. It was no wonder that such a beautiful person was the subject of all of their desires. Only me and Enju were unsusceptible to her.

Of course, now it has changed. Mokuren has come back as Alice, and Enju has come back as Issei. Issei is Enju, but he cannot help being a male and wanting to fall in love with Alice. I was afraid of losing Issei to Alice, I admit it. I was really, really, deeply afraid. I don't think Alice knew of this, even though I was accidentally on purpose avoiding her. Jinpachi didn't know, but then again, he rarely noticed anything unless you shoved it right under his nose. I never saw Haruhiko a lot, I think he was too ashamed of his past life to really talk with me again. It was partially my fault; I wasn't the friendliest person on the moon. Rin knew. Of course he knew. He was Shion, wasn't he? He had always been this dark and shady character. Never liked him much. He even had the audacity to corner me (me! An adult already, and him, barely 12!), and threaten me, saying that if I wouldn't stop avoiding his precious Alice, he would be forced to take some measures against me. I wasn't afraid of that little brat. Hell no. But I tried to hang out with Alice more anyway. After all, she is Mokuren. She _is_ one of the only few who suffered through those harsh days when no one knew who would die next.

But Issei knew. I knew that Issei knew. He knew that I knew. But we never spoke of it and after Rin threatened me and I tried not to avoid Alice, it didn't become an issue that I knew would become soon if I didn't change.

And life went on. They got married, we got married. They had Ren, we had nothing. I love Ren. I really do. He's like my own son, but every time I look at him, I see his mother in him. It's because of her that he will be half-perfect. He reminds me of Alice and reminds me of Mokuren.

I don't know. Maybe I have an inferiority complex. I did love Mokuren and I do love Alice. She's such a kind person, no one would be able to not love her. But I want to love her from a distance. Every time I am near her, I can see such a contrast between us and I wonder if everyone else can see it too. She's the kindest, sweetest, most perfect person alive. I would never be able to compare to her, yet always, always, I am measuring myself against her. I wonder if Enju did this, back on the moon base. I wonder if Issei felt like this in this lifetime when he wanted Jinpachi so much.

I can remember exactly when I wanted to be like Mokuren.

"_Shusuran! Shusuran!" A lovely voice called me._

_I turned around. I knew it was Mokuren. Only she could talk normally and still sound like she was singing. It was a wonder the plants didn't grow everywhere. "Yes, Mokuren?"_

_She smiled at me and handed a book to me. "I found this on the kitchen table. Since you left before me, I thought it must have been yours."_

_I recognized its blue binding right away. It was my journal, where I wrote everything. I never let it out of my room, except in the early, early mornings where I would go to the kitchen for a snack and write in it. This was the first time I slipped up._

_I glared at Mokuren. Could she have read it? Examining her smiling, innocent face, I decided she probably didn't. If she did, she most definitely would not be smiling at me. "Thank you." I replied brusquely. I reached to take it, but I didn't quite make the distance. The book fell from her pale hand and my journal clattered on the floor, opening up and allowing several sheets of paper to fall out. On one of them was one of my doodlings. On that paper, I had written, "I love Enju". I followed Mokuren's gaze to that doodling and saw her beautiful blue eyes widen slightly. I waited for her reaction, absolutely horrified._

But then she bent down and put the sheets of paper back into the book. She stood back up and handed my journal to me. "Sorry for dropping it." As I numbly accepted it, Mokuren smiled again. "Did you know that in Japan, Sakura blossoms are a symbol of living your life to the fullest?" Her smile still on her face, she looked out the window, to Earth. Mokuren had always loved Earth. She turned back to me and she smiled at me. "Live your life to the fullest, Shusuran. Because life is too short, don't you think?"And with that, she left me, leaving the air smelling of sweet flowers that I now knew were sakuras.

I am Shusuran, the woman with short hair and who wanted long hair, the one with the sarcastic bite, the one who followed Enju to the moon. I am Sakura, the girl who got her long hair, the one who finally got Enju. I could never be the kind, sweet, beautiful Mokuren. I don't know why I thought I ever could. She's so kind, so nice, so beautiful. She reminded me to live, instead of existing. She reminded me of beauty, of kindness, of everything that was good in the world. She represents so much, and so many people depend on her, but she doesn't know it. Alice doesn't know it. Alice doesn't want to know that. To herself, she is just a useless girl who can sing and save Rin, but that's about it. To everyone else, she is so much more. To me, she is so much more.

And that is why my name is Sakura.

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End file.
